Thank you Tookie for changing the lives of our youth through your books

Hundreds of people converged Monday on the South Los Angeles neighborhood where Stanley Tookie Williams co-founded the Crips to say goodbye to a "homeboy" executed last week over the objections of supporters who said he had turned his life around.

Williams, clad in a gray suit, lay in an open coffin at the House of Winston Mortuary as people quietly filed by with their heads bowed.

The viewing was to be followed by a funeral Tuesday, December 20, 2005, in Los Angeles, at Bethel A.M.E. Church, on 79th and Westen, in Los Angeles, California. Organizers said those expected to attend included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg.